Sunshine Patriots and Pundits

The Washington Post has a story on "Pundits Renouncing The President", mostly quoting conservative supporters of the war who are critical now.

Well, I am not a short-attention-span, sunshine-patriot conservative and am not going to follow Rich Lowry and ask whether Iraq is the president's Vietnam. I am not going to follow Joe Scarborough and mock the president even as he mangles words himself.

If we learned anything from Vietnam, it was that once basic policy has been set the war should not be politicized and the president should rely on the best judgement of the military who is in the best position to know how to win it.

This global war on terror is not going away and we have got to win it. How can we yield to an ideology that brutalizes and enslaves women and turns children into suicide bombers? How can we yield to a culture of death? Iraq is where we must make our stand. If it takes longer to win hearts and minds in Iraq, so be it. We are there now to give democracy a chance, and room to breathe. If they ask us to leave we will go, but not a moment sooner.

I still have posted up on my kitchen cupboard, torn from a newspaper (NY Times, Friday, Sept. 21, 2001) an image of a determined Statue of Liberty: "We will roll up our sleeves, we will move forward together, we will overcome, we will never forget."

Many said President Reagan was an idiot too---some still believe it, it's the classic arrogant liberal attack on grounded conservatives, but most of us recognize that he was probably the greatest president of the 20th century and he liberated millions of people from what he dared to call an evil empire. It was an evil empire that attacked us on September 11th. And Iraq was an evil empire under Saddam Hussein, wreaking terror at home and abroad.

So I would say to the pundits, a little humility is in order, and a little faith in our president, and in our troops.